Finger Foods

So we reached another milestone this weekend - finger foods.
I was just complaining to David that the "baby manual" says that at seven months a baby should be able to feed himself a cracker, but I can not find any crackers labeled for his age. I had one kind at the house labeled for 12 months. And I saw another kind at a store labeled for 9 months. David said - ah, rubbish. So he just pulled out the baby crackers that we had, gave one to Shurik and the rest is history. It did not take long for Shurik to figure out how to handle it. Since then we tried cooked carrots and a banana with success. By the look of it Shurik really enjoyed it!

Peas VS Green Beans

I love peas - fresh right off the vine, out of a can or frozen. David is OK with peas. He is really a green beans man. Of course, I did not grow up eating green beans and when I moved here for a long time I did not come across anyone who could cook beans well. Now I do enjoy when David cooks them, but peas are still my favorites.

Of course, I tried peas with the baby first. And he was pretty happy with them the first time. But as we gradually learned Shurik only likes peas once in a while - don't you feed him peas several times in a row... But he does eat green beans every time. So he is definitely taking after his papa.

Still it is carrots that are absolutely his favorites!

Are we sleeping yet?

Well, not quite yet. Though we did have a couple of days when he slept through the night completely. It seems that for the most part his waking up shifted to 4:30 pm...




A friend at work recommended to read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissblut. He said that in less than 2 weeks their kid was sleeping through the night once they started following the steps outlined in the book. So I ordered the book and is keeping my fingers crossed. The book should be here tomorrow (Friday, March 12).

New Development

Today - March 11, 2010 - is officially the first day of Shurik's crawling!
Provided he did not crawl in a line, but he was on his belly and he pushed himself around, so that eventually he did 360 circle. He could do the same maneuver on his back for a quite a while now - since December. But once you put him on his belly he could not quite figure out how to use his hands. He would kick and push his legs and get his butt off the ground, but nothing else would happen. Though several time he came so close to propelling himself that I actually was holding my breath expecting him to move from a spot any moment :)
It's funny - usually when he gets something like this archived he himself does not even realize that he is doing something new or accomplishing anything. And so when David and I clap our hands and make a big deal out of it, he looks at us like what's all the fuss us about?


P.S. Ok, he did not quite crawled, more like slithered around. But he is mobile now!

Sleeping (or NOT)

It's hard to believe, but apparently being able to fall asleep is a skill that humans usually do not possess when they are born. Hence rocking, nursing, lullaby singing and all the other tricks that help get a baby to sleep. The problem is that babies wake up a lot through the night and they don't know how to fall back asleep...
Shurik's doctor said that he does not need any mid-night feedings now and if we wait any longer to break him from night time feedings and other interactions it will only get harder. Not to mention all the stories I hear from people at work supporting the theory that delaying this process is not a good idea.
So on Thursday we decided that it was time to teach Shurik to fall asleep on his own. Which of course immediately resulted in us sleeping even less then when we got up at night to sooth him back to sleep. The first night we endured about 4 hours of on and off crying, last night he only fussed for about 2 hours, hopefully today will have even a better result.

Pulling Up

Came home early today to find the boy trying to pull up on the edge of his playpen. How exciting! Of course, he more often got stuck half way in an odd pose without being able to either go up or down. So it was very frustrating for him, but pretty amusing to us.
I guess it's time now to move him to the bottom part of the playpen.

Bananas, pears & bread

Yesterday Shurik had 3 slices of a real banana, 2 slices of a pear and some bread. OK, OK. They were teeny-weeny slices of fruit and more like a soft crumb of bread, but for a little guy like Shurik this still was a lot of work.
How did it go?
Well, he was curious about bananas at first. He found a pear to be really odd - it was much colder than a banana temperature wise and it seemed to put him off. And by the time we got to bread he was actively trying to prevent me from putting anything into his mouth.
And did it stop me? No, of course, not! I had to do this one last piece... mommy knows best, right? ;)